Mark of The Order
by RavenQuill
Summary: From the vast depths of the Underworld to the reaches of the Spiritworld, a new evil has surfaced that is so great it aims not only to destroy the Endowed, but the Universe as well.
1. Prologue

The first chapter of Book 1. Whether I post Book 2 & 3 depends on time and reviews. I hope you like. Advice and suggestions for side plots and characters are welcome! Please review!

I do not own CB, and if you're looking for someone who does then you're on the wrong site.

Drums… They filled the great chasm that was the Underworld with a never-ending pulsation of dread and despair… For all that resided within the bosom of Death's Sanctum knew well of their meaning: It was coming. . .

The beat of the drums was eerily similar to that of a heartbeat's; it's pace was doubled with every terror filled instance, and every fear that was horribly realized. Faster, and faster. Darkness began to envelop even the most fiercely blazing of the fire-lined crevices. Matter it did not, for the Servants of the Dark Lord did not need light to see by. The sole purpose of flame was to fuel the forges, and its brilliance was far more of a hindrance than an aid to the sensitive, sightless eyes of Pluto's lackeys.

Endlessly they toiled; propelling the lifts and pulleys that fed strength to a device of monstrous proportions. It was a crane of sorts with massive sockets and crude markings. It's lead was a culmination of blackened chain links miles long, that disappeared into what was easily the deepest of the Underworld's mining holes. Ironically, it was also considered to be the youngest, for it was not originally part of Pluto's domain. After all: what's a few thousand years spent mining in a land where time is kept by the millennia?

"Lift the cage!" roared a slave of Darkness to his underlings. He was far beyond grotesque, with every inch of him a deformity. He was no longer even human, and could not recall having ever been so. Centuries spent in a prison of fire- where wounds did not inflict pain, but neither did they heal- had transformed him, as it had all that paced the rocky platform on which he stood.

Lift a cage they did. And following it was an eruption of fire so intense that it was almost as if in protest of the pit's removal of its bounty. Many cringed at first sight of large stone box. It was made entirely of a stone beheld not but any creature of the living or, as the situation would have it, the dead. It was of the purest white, and engraved with cryptic symbols and powerful spells to keep it forever sealed. The spells did not fail to react to the first blow of a hammer attempting to break its surface. Pale, cloaked shadows rose as if one with the stifling, toxic air that none needed to breathe.

"Stand your ground!" a second shout arose, shattering the tension. All raised their hammers and forks and dove towards the walls of the cage with great desire to break them. The power of the Spirits of great, but it was nearly powerless against the onslaught of millions of souls who had soiled their lives by doing evil, and were now suffering their compensation in the afterlife.

In what may have been a minute, a year, or a thousand years, the great slabs cracked. And within, Earth shuddering roars could be heard. So terrible were they that even those who had met nothing but evil for so long clapped their hands where their ears had once been, in a futile attempt to keep out the sounds.

The Devil's pet had been set free.

Charlie Bone bolted upright in his bed, breathing hard and beads of sweat trailing down his forehead. He heard footsteps rushing down the hall towards his bedroom, and someone bursting through the doorway. A flip of his light switch (It was still pitch black outside) revealed his father's position near the open door, and his concerned expression.

"Charlie, what is it?" he said immediately. "I could hear you shouting from the kitchen."

Charlie shook his head to rid himself of the images, and replied as calmly as he could, "Nothing, just a bad dream. I'm fine." But he was confused by his father's question: He couldn't recall having screamed. He shrugged it off and added, reassuringly, "Really, I'm ok."

But even as he tried to fall asleep again, he couldn't shake the sensation of a fire's heat licking his skin, nor forget the monstrous howls of the creature he had not yet seen, and he didn't want to ever see.

'Jeez…' he mused to himself after his father had gone, 'Thank God Olivia doesn't have my nightmares. I'm not ready to see a dramatic enactment of world's end just because she got bored in class.'

But if Charlie had realized it wasn't his own imagination, then he would have also realized he was the only mortal witness to the first step… the first step in a plan for the end of, not just the World, but the Universe.

I plan to write a lot more, so please review! 


	2. Oblivion

-Well, here it is! The 2nd chapter. Hope everyone likes (Sorry, it's kinda short), and I'm completely open for suggestions! The main plot, climax, ending, etc. has already been decided, but I'm totally open for side-plots and pairing suggestions. And thanks to everyone for the reviews!

Chapter 1: Oblivion

Charlie's early morning routine was, at best, an ineffective one. Due to extreme reluctance towards his early morning destination (and the fact that the only one on Filbert Street who was ever enthusiastic about his attending Bloor's Academy was a withered old woman in a very gaudy robe) there was no one who dreaded the rising Sun more.

It was consistent, reliable, and fairly monotonous: He'd wake up, catch sight of daylight, and hope to catch something far more viral. As if her daily schedule was planned around Charlie's most difficult time of day, Grizelda Bone would take it upon herself to make everything even more difficult. After all: a puddle of mud isn't all that bad until someone chucks it at you.

But this morning was different. It was the first Monday morning since Charlie's father had finally been rescued from his mental prison, and the first Monday morning since Grandma Bone had completely abandoned her residence for the past eleven years with all of her things, and not so much as a note left behind. It was the unusual afternoon silence that gave her absence away. Charlie figured she was showing cowardice towards the recent blow to "her side" of the battlefield. And understandably so: Her relationship with her son was pretty much beyond repair.

And Charlie figured he couldn't complain. His home life was no longer held together by the lies and interference that came with being dependent on the Yewbeams. There was no longer any stress involved in speaking inside the walls of his own home. Conversations were more sacred than they had ever been, and Charlie was beginning to understand the feeling of security in a real home, with the protection of two loving parents, that most kids his age took for granted.

But thus far, he hadn't had the opportunity to enjoy it. Charlie immediately recognized the signs of calm before a great storm, and knew very well that the scale had been tipped. In the favor of good, but tipped none the less. And he understood better than anyone else did (except for Cook, of course) that any form of disturbance within the sanctity of the balance was a very bad thing. If the good were to negate the bad, it would begin as a peaceful arrangement, but it would not remain that way. If humans could not do it, nature would take it upon itself to set things in order. Death and corruption would result until both sides became equivalent once again. It was a terrible cycle, and it had to be prevented. If not, whom would they lose to the other side? Would Tancred be lost to them again, this time forever? Or perhaps Olivia's powerful gift would finally be revealed to Dr. Bloor? Charlie couldn't think of it without getting an icy feeling in the pit of his stomach.

He usually pondered all this in a doze just after waking and a couple minutes before his mother's soft knock on the door. But the previous night's nightmare had him sleeping at this time, and he was unceremoniously awoken by a burst of roundhouse noise that made Grandma Bone's wake-up calls seem reasonably sincere. He fell out of bed, untangled himself from a mass of blankets, then bolted to his window in record time. Although, not without first stumbling over his desk chair, as he usually did every once in a while.

The sight of the neighborhood from his second-floor view left him incredulous, and all his musings of the Endowed and his recent nightmare dissolved. For, just several meters below him, there was a matter of deeply unsettling results that had not before occurred on his street: It was being torn apart by the pets of all who lived there.

Trash bins were overturned, littering the once carefully kept street with newspapers and cans. Dogs gnawed at their leads and chains; some burrowed near their fences, desperate to be free of all physical bindings. Cats were hissing wildly, and arching their backs at inanimate objects such as post boxes. The entire scene was hysterical, and Charlie was extreme confused as to the fact as there was not a single human being anywhere near the street, not even police. No one seemed to be making a single effort to restrain his or her pets. Weren't they worried their animals would be lost or injured in the frenzy? Surely they could hear the tremulous howling, since it was practically piercing the sound barrier.

Charlie threw on his clothes and shoes in a matter of seconds; a talent he had obtained from many overslept mornings. If his mind hadn't been so occupied with the situation at hand, he might have noticed the eerie stillness within the house. Not a movement was to be seen, nor a sound (other than the unrelenting howling outside) to be heard.

Charlie bounded off the landing and towards the front door. For the first time he understood his Uncle Paton's choice saying in life: "Hesitance makes time seem swift, but swift feet makes time appear hesitant." It felt indeed as if the faster he tried to move, the more sluggish his progress became. All his instincts begged him not to open the door and step outside. Why, Charlie didn't know. He wasn't afraid of these pets that he knew and had got on with so well on numerous previous occassions. There was something else out there. Something far more grave than a ravaged street.

Stepping outside, time was still. Charlie felt his gaze slowly uplift to the sky above, as if completely free of his will. And what he saw was like nothing anyone of this Earth had ever seen before.

The sky was completely amassed by a swirling, black abyss.


	3. The Office

-Hey, everyone! I wrote and rewrote this chapter several times, but I still don't think I've got the wording quite right. So, if you come back to the story and the chapter seems different, don't worry. I've just done a bit of tidying up on the phrasing, and you haven't missed anything. **Major thanks to Korry, who is a good friend of mine and graciously helped me with this story's plot!!!** I will be using a ton of his ideas!

Chapter 2: The Office

Charlie felt as if he was being horribly stretched. He harbored a strange limpness in his joints, and felt the feelings of both flight and of a terribly sinking. And there was nothing to be done about it.

It registered in Charlie's brain (a little too late for his preference) that the longer he gazed at the surreal storm raging overhead, utterly entranced by it, that the closer it appeared. It had been so subtle that no one, not even someone with the speed of a bounty hunter nor the keen senses of a wolf, could have noticed it right away; His feet had left the ground.

He was flying… high into the sky. He briefly wondered if the experience was at all similar to Emma's preferred method of travel, but he figured that intentionally transforming into a bird and taking flight was far more enjoyable than being forcibly sucked into a black vortex. 'Wait,' Charlie thought suddenly, 'Why am I so calm? I'm not frightened at all. Everything just feels so… natural. Like this is exactly what I should be doing at this moment.' Judging by the outward appearance of the situation, Charlie figured he should have been terrified. But instead of trusting his eyes, which would have done no good considering the fact that even though he was moving at a mild pace he was still very high above the ground and held no intention of stopping whatsoever by this point, he trusted a very small feeling in the back of his consciousness. It was the feeling that, even though the clouds above looked very auspicious, when he reached them he would find himself in a grand place. And Charlie was always one to trust his instincts. Even though he had never had one quite this specific to the situation; it was the most profound one yet. So, he let go of his attempts at fighting it.

He was only a few seconds from the destination of whatever force was compelled to hold him aloft. Why he wasn't cold or having difficulty drawing breath at this altitude he didn't consider. The only time Charlie's mind had ever felt so distant was the time he had been hypnotized by Manfred, and he realized this situation could be very similar. Someone could have entranced him, made him let go of all his will, in order to keep him from fighting against their ideals. But rather than feeling as cold as Manfred's malevolent gaze, he felt warm. He could almost doze…and he was so close now, so high above the noise of the streets… His ascension abruptly ceased.

If Charlie hadn't fallen deeply asleep by the time he had reached the eye of the storm, he would surely have been blinded by the brilliance of the white light that suddenly flooded the ocean-like sky. Many individuals would see the white light, and all its brilliance, from miles around. None who saw it had seen the storm, because this ostentatious display of purity was far larger and more abrupt with the senses, no matter how dulled by age or naïve from innocence they might have been. When the light faded, the sky was blue and whole once again. Its cheery, cloudless surface was smooth and striated with the bright blushes of dawn. And many a bustling denizen of London was given a sudden surge of hopefulness, with them puzzling as to the source of it. Nothing betrayed the previous presence of darkness, and, as with the gloomy, overhanging presence of foreboding, Charlie had vanished as well.

"This is outrageous! How completely irresponsible of you!"

"Come now, I was merely taking affirmative action in light of our new troubles."

"You don't even have the authority to assume that the Order is having troubles, and nor do I. Or any other members of the direct democratic party for that matter, because we can't hold council to investigate and discuss any supposed threats unless all members are present and accounted for. And you and I are here, cleaning up this latest experiment of yours!"

"It isn't an experiment… though I admit I probably should have given the idea a little more careful planning."

"And you choose now to come to this conclusion? There is a youngling in our domain!"

"He is of our kind."

"I don't care if he is of troll kind; He is too young to be in the Order!"

Charlie could hear two voices locked in an argument. Or, rather, one voice answering calmly to another's outrage. Whose voices they were, Charlie had no idea, because he could not recall having ever heard them before. His eyes were closed and his mind resting peacefully, only slightly aware of his current situation. There were only two things his senses could gather through his current state of drowsiness: 1. He was lying down on a strange stone surface of some kind, and 2. the air around him was strangely still and dry; with not a hint of breeze or moisture whatsoever. 'So unlike that storm,' Charlie thought, feeling quite lackadaisical.

The storm…

Charlie bolted into an upright position, completely regaining all his wits. Now his mind was rushing frantically, digesting all the happenings leading up to that moment. How could he have forgotten? What happened? Why? Where did he-?

He took in surroundings and gasped. He was in a circular clearing completely surrounded by silvery-gray trees larger than that of his eyes had ever witnessed. A fully grown man could not wrap his arms completely around one of the many roots protruding from the soil. From the trees hung cleverly crafted lanterns made from a greenish metal, and they were adorned with many flowing symbols of a language Charlie had never seen before. From them emitted a soft light, of which the source was unidentifiable, though it did not appear to be fire. Most unusual of all these new sights was the exact replica of the Venus de Milo, perched directly across from him in the clearing. What separated this sculpture from the one he had seen in several textbooks over the years was that it appeared whole. One hand was held gracefully by her side, with the lean arm from which it extended slightly bent. The other hand was held majestically aloft, her arm poised high above her head. And in that hand was held… a jar of peanut butter. As if this wasn't enough of a culture shock, Charlie bounded to his feet and took several steps back once he got a good look at the surface on which he had been sitting. It appeared to be a solid gold mummy's sarcophagus. Charlie shook his head with his eyes wide and mouth agape, and thought to himself, 'I've completely lost my sanity.'

The sarcophagus wasn't by far the last of the abnormalities. There were several vases from many cultures and quite a few other strange variations of classic marble sculptures. To his left sat a large stone desk and a small Victorian chair and silk cushion with which to sit at that desk. To his right were dozens of complete suits of armor ranging from samurai to medieval knight. On a mosaic Indian low table sat a bag of yarn and knitting needles next to a blue vase of sunflowers, each bloom of the flower as wide as a person's face.

And then there were the books. Thousands of them were stacked about in no particular order: Hardback, scroll, epic, reference, comic, tragic, thin, thick, recent, and some looked hundreds of years old.

Someone cleared his or her throat. Charlie jerked his head over his shoulder to see two old men looking in his direction. One had a kindly face, and the twinkle in his eyes reminded Charlie of that of his Grandfather Jimmy's. His long white beard was striated with many silver strands, and he wore a long blue robe adorned with many faded, silver stars. Perched precariously on top of his head was what appeared to be a wizard's hat.

The other old man's hair, in deep contrast with his peer's, was black as night. He also appeared to be several years younger and far more short-tempered. His robes were dark green and had the gold lettering on the sleeves Charlie recognized to be in Chinese. The man himself was Asian, and his already narrow eyes had become mere slits due to his apparent irritation towards the situation. The only thing the two men appeared to have in common was that their eyes both emanated with wisdom that far exceeded Ezekial Bloor's both in age and knowledgeable capacity. These men obviously had more years behind them than even Ezekial's impressive hundred.

Charlie's mind was forced back to the present at the sound of the silver-bearded man's voice. The man took a single stride forward, gestured slightly at the clearing in that all three of the party stood, and said very gently, "Hello, Charlie Bone. My name is Mathonwy, and this is General Liu. Welcome to Armeena."

-Longest chapter yet. Hope everyone liked! I promise more after Christmas.

**To MONKIY: I have been constantly checking my PM box, but I haven't received any. I would love to collaborate with you! **


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